I'm Just Out To Find The Better Part Of Me

I've always known where I'm going; it's the strangest thing. From as early as I can remember, I knew where my creativity would take me and I knew where I fit in. When people recommend a film or a writer to me; I know very quickly whether it is relevant to me as an artist.

I read a wide variety of books and am fascinated by numerous things in the world, but at the same time can be very narrowly-focused and disinterested in things around me. I might obsessively appear to watch any film that comes my way yet people will be frustrated when I show no interest in watching films they recommend to me.

I've always been very aware that life is not going to last forever. I have a limited amount of time to learn to be the best writer and director I can be. Therefore, engaging in my fascination with Woody Allen's career is helpful, or watching Aaron Sorkin's writing mature over the years is useful, but buying and watching every episode of CSI is meaningless to me.

I knew that I would be a writer/director and that I would make low-budget independent films long before anyone in my life knew what those things were. In the past I have turned down chances to direct music videos, or to write feature films for particular producer's, or to follow opportunities to make money working on film sets because I know-- they are not what I am here for and they'll distract me from where I'm heading.

I think it's important to know where you're heading. Even with this blog; I have absolute clarity in regard to what it is, what it does, and what it means to me. And if someone says "You should do more articles about horror films" or "Have you ever thought of writing more advice about film budgets?" I very quickly know my answers.

I think when I was younger, people saw my choices as limitations, perhaps even naivety. But for me, specialized focus is one of the key reasons I am able to follow the career path I am choosing. I knew with SO MUCH clarity last week that ADVENTURELAND is a great film; because I know what I like, I know what is meaningful to me and I know what I value as good writing, directing, and acting.

I know what drives me, what excites me, and what challenges me to do better. I can define it:

I like writer/director's. I like film's where we see the world through the eyes of a sole creator. I like that you can watch something and SEE Billy Wilder, or Giuseppe Tornatore, or Cameron Crowe. I like that they can make things more meaningful. I like the effect they have on me as a human being.

I've always wanted to do the same. It's what I value in film.

If someone gave me ten million dollars to direct a Hollywood action movie, that's very cool; and it'd be hard to say no, for sure; but it genuinely ISN'T what drives me.

When someone tells me 'a concept' for a movie, I get bored. When someone tells me why Blu-Ray is technically better than DVD, I get bored. When I watch a movie that doesn't have the voice of an idea or angle stemming from the writer and/or director--- I can instantly identify that something's missing and I get bored.

This isn't a limitation, not in a creative sense; it's a big window into who I am and what my essence is. When I first saw A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, I loved it. It spoke to me. As I researched further, of course, I found it was a passion project by a writer/director, Dito Montiel. Not a surprise, not a coincidence. This happens all the time. Likewise, I loved the movie 'Beautiful Girls.' This movie wasn't directed by the writer. But when I spoke to the writer, he told me that it was a passion project that he wrote in five days because it was burning inside of him.

This isn't a surprise, it's what I do, it's what I relate to, it's what I care about. THE WEST WING is my favorite show because it was Aaron Sorkin putting his brain down on the page week after week, and the reason I didn't like '24' was because it was about being cool and clever. The reason I adore ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is because the creator had a way of indulging in his wacky, unique humor and sharing it with the world. The reason Charlie Chaplin is one of my biggest influences is because he is the epitome of everything I value in art, creativity and the movies.

I am not enthralled with trailers, or script pitches, or viral adverts, or factory-studio-movies-- not because I'm pretentious, but because; my interest comes from a different place. It comes from somewhere deep inside of me that longs to hear a voice that echoes truth about our world. Charlie Chaplin was the master at this. Likewise, people like Woody Allen and Cameron Crowe were able to capture their generations in ways so few people can. And it's not just that so few people can, it's that so few even try.

I am not about the quick idea or the 'cool' concept. I don't care what your story is about, I just care about why you care about it and how much of that is going into your work. I watched ADVENTURELAND the other day knowing nothing about it. By the end of the movie I was ecstatic because I'd found a piece of art created by someone who had to tell a story about himself, his life, his youth; and had managed to transform that into something universal and relatable to a bigger audience. This is what interests me and this is what I value and this is why I write blogs, write movies and direct films.

If I have no interest in your work or your DVD recommendation, I'm sorry, but life is short, thousands of films are produced every year, I have work to do. Put it this way; in the USA alone, over 500,000 people a year put their profession as 'artist' on census survey's. If we were to pay attention to all of them, we'd never get any work done. I need to focus on me, on what I'm creating. The people I collaborate with, get inspired by, steal from and aspire to be are only going to be a very select group. It has to be that way in order for me to be able to function and move forward as a productive creator of material that will be meaningful to me and, hopefully, the world.

"I don't want to be,
Anything other than what I've been trying to be lately,
All I have to do,
Is think of me and I have peace of mind,
I'm tired of looking 'round rooms,
Wondering what I've got to do,
Or who I'm supposed to be,
I don't want to be anything other than me."-Gavin Degraw

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Something To Think About

Just got an email from a friend, and he wrote:

"I want to run around Hollywood with you, man...we need to play here and make movies here and drive up into the hills and up the coast highway, blasting Allman Brothers and Rolling Stones and early Van Halen."

If he agrees to swap Van Halen, for Springsteen, maybe I'll book a plane ride.

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ADVENTURELAND Is Still With Me

On Tuesday I saw ADVENTURELAND for the first time. On Wednesday I blogged about it. Now it's a few days later and I'm still thinking about the movie, it's still playing in my mind and unravelling in my thoughts. There are songs in the movie that I love that I haven't heard in years, like "Unsatisfied" by The Replacements, but there are also songs like "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House; a song that I always found annoying. But now I've heard it from a new perspective, filtered through the eyes of 'Adventureland' and now I can't get enough of it.

There is something no screenwriter or director can be taught. It's how to create something that will have the effect that 'Adventureland' is having on me right now. There's no formula for it. And, no doubt, there are people who will think this film sucks, and rightly so-- I'm not saying it's one of the greatest films ever, but maybe it is for me. The films I have been claiming to love recently are THE SOCIAL NETWORK and THE PUFFY CHAIR -- two very different movies, both great in their own way. But, when I think about it, they're just good movies. Very good movies. But they didn't connect with me in the way 'Adventureland' did.

But why? What is it? Is it because the film was set in my formative years? Is it because I can relate to the problems of the characters? Is it because I want the type of connection that Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart share in the movie? Or is it just because Greg Mottola and his team did such a great job and creating a world I could believe in and get sucked into for two hours?

I have no idea. If I was a film student, maybe I'd have an answer (they always do) - or perhaps if I was a more analytical blogger I'd be able to come up with some theory. But I don't have that, and luckily; I don't want that. I'm happy having this feeling-- a feeling where I'm watching every interview with the cast and crew I can find, and I'm listening to the soundtrack non-stop, and I'm telling every person I know to watch it, and I'm ordering multiple copies of the DVD and I'm going over memories of the movie in my head.

This is exactly WHY I love movies, and it's great to feel it again. As much as the reason I love movies is to get this feeling, the sad fact is that --- it's extremely RARE. But right now, before I ruin it by watching the film thirty times over, it's truly magic; and I am aware again of the awesome power of the cinema. It gets to have this effect, on people. That's something to strive for, someone to hope for; and that's something to be excited about.

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ADVENTURELAND Is Something Special

So, your life must be utter shit or you wouldn't be here.
It's two o'clock in the morning. I'm tired and I have a headache. But I had to turn my laptop on and write. I just watched ADVENTURELAND; for the second night in a row. I have no idea what I want to write, I just know that I have to. This is how I know it's a great movie. When you start figuring out clever things to write in your blog midway through a film, then you know it sucks. 

'Adventureland' is about being in your teens or in your early twenties, at that stage when you're trying to figure your life out whilst surviving a bullshit job and falling in and out of love. Pretty much as soon as we love movies about these topics we begin to hate them and look for something more meaningful-- just like in real life. We're young people in dead end jobs for our whole lives but we're only really open and honest about it at the beginning -- at the age the characters in this movie are portraying. We spent the rest of life being grown up, pretending we have it figured out, refusing to dance the dance of emotion and love and lust and pain. We're only reminded of how big a part of ourselves these things are when we see a piece of art like 'Adventureland.'

Don't you just love that movies like this exist? That the guy who directed SUPERBAD (Greg Mottola) can follow it up with something so understated and honest. Who'd have thought? And who'd have believed that the girl from TWILIGHT would follow it up with something like this? While we're on the subject, it's important to say: Kristen Stewart is amazing. Everyone seems to hate her now because she's in these big blockbusters and because she doesn't smile and act like a whore every time her agent forces her onto television to do promotion or every time a group of journalists interrupt her holiday abroad to see if she's still with her boyfriend. We seem to hate her for the fact that she just likes to act, just likes to do her job. But she's something special. She's great in INTO THE WILD and IN THE LAND OF THE WOMEN and she does a solid job in TWILIGHT, but it's in films like this one where you really get to see what she's capable of. And what is it she's capable of? Honesty. Subtlety. Humanity. I can't help but watch her and feel like I know her. Or feel like I knew her, like we went to school together. She knows what acting is, she knows what her job is; and she does it with a grace and skill that is rare.

But then, so does Jesse Eisenberg. What I love about him on screen, whether it's in 'Adventureland' or THE SOCIAL NETWORK is that he just knows how to be himself. And of course, actors get criticised for 'always being themselves' but people don't realize how tough that is. Most actors spend their whole careers trying to be someone else because they haven't got a clue how to be themselves. These guys know how to do it and the results are incredible. Watching Eisenberg and Stewart in this movie; we get to really see the characters, we get to really feel something real; and as a result, we get to see ourselves.

You might think you're watching a bunch of young people working at a theme park but what you're really seeing is yourself back when you worked in that store, or at that leisure center or at that bowling alley or wherever the hell it was back when you kept falling in and out of love whilst trying to figure out what the hell you were going to do with your life. This is a movie about you and it's a movie about me. It's a film that dares to be honest and dares to be small.




They struggled to market this movie. It had the 'elements' like the big actors and the hotshot writer/director -- but there was a problem: it had a story, and it had heart. How the fuck do you market something like that? The problem is, you can't. You can't market heart. If a good heart was an easy sell then all the lonely people on dating sites tonight would be out there falling in love. But it's not that easy. Good heart doesn't sell well. It's hard to recognize, and people will misunderstand it and people won't be expecting it. You have to just do it, be it, create it. Heart will find its way eventually. Films like 'Adventureland' sneak up on you when you don't expect it. They are disguised as typical studio comedies and they're generally thrown out in cinemas and swiftly dumped because no-one really knows they exist or they know they exist but have been sold some bullshit by a trailer that made the movie seem like some contrived, typical junk.

But 'Adventureland' exists. And it's a little slice of magic.Thank you, Greg Mottola.

Wait, Em -- I think, I maybe see you a little differently than-than you see yourself. Yes, I-I see the person who fucked up but I.. I also see the person who saved me from being knifed over a giant-ass-panda.

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Giving Myself Permission To Watch Films

I'm not sure when I got like this. One minute I was 14 and watching four movies a day. The next thing you know I'm quite a bit older and any time I watch a movie I feel guilty. Like I'm being unproductive. For me, watching a movie is like a weird, complex and secretive thing I have to do at times my inner critic will allow. It's like this.

Inner Critic: Dude, you can't sit around watching movies.

The Kid: Okay, but it's 3am! You can't expect me to be productive at three AM, can I watch a movie now?

Inner Critic: Ssssh, I'm napping.

And so I watch a movie at 3am. Or today. Today I am getting paid to edit. But, the first part of this job is uploading and converting. Which takes hours. So I was able to have some permission.

IC: Dude, do your job.

Kid: It's uploading, and converting, and all that stuff.

IC: Then work on your script.

Kid: I am not in the frame of mind for that, whilst I'm doing the other job.

IC: Find a location for the movie you're doing.

Kid: I'm editing.

IC: Hmm. But it's converting.

Kid: So I should watch a movie.

IC: That's not working.

Kid: Work is being done. I'll sneak in a movie. 1pm till 3pm. It's fine.

IC: Okay, fine. Be like that.

And that's how it's done. When did I get so insane? The truth of the matter is: I NEED movies. I need to watch them. I need to sit there and sink into the wonderful world of a good story and fascinating characters. But I give myself a hard time getting there.

Yesterday, I did a long job in the freezing cold in the middle of a field and it was all handheld and my equipment was getting ruined by torrential rain and it was all a bit insane. But it was hard work, and I got paid well, so my inner-critic went on vacation.

So when I got home, I felt like my day had value. I was able to watch a movie guilt free. I watched "ADVENTURELAND" and had the most fun I've had with a movie in about a year. But this is what I do to myself.

It's funny because; I do a lot of inner critic work and positive thinking and personal development and all that stuff -- but this issue, of film watching guilt still arises. It could be a negative thing, or maybe it's the part of me that makes sure I do a good day's work. I give myself a hard time and it leads to me watching a lot of films for seventeen minutes before turning them off so I can go and work on a script or whatever; but maybe it's a good thing; I watch less films now, but when I see them: I've really earned it. Like "THANK YOU FOR SMOKING" just now, or "ADVENTURELAND" last night.

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